Is science a belief?

[Mongrel]

Well there have been quite a few replies to my post and all of them show that you do not grasp the fundamental point I was trying to make.

I got the underlying point though "Nadgers, more philosophical wanking"

[zenthinker]

I got the underlying point though "Nadgers, more philosophical wanking"

I get the impression from reading this site that the reason so many of you "logicians" seem to hate philosophy so much is that it's a little too threatening to your own belief systems. If it's not black and white you hate it don't you. If it questions the underlying assumptions of science it's heresy isn't it?

[Tim the Mage]

I get the impression from reading this site that the reason so many of you "logicians" seem to hate philosophy so much is that it's a little too threatening to your own belief systems. If it's not black and white you hate it don't you. If it questions the underlying assumptions of science it's heresy isn't it?

Seems the regulars did their 'ganging up on you' act - your point was a good one (although Hobbes did it rather better around 300 years earlier) about our perception.

Two things these "skeptics" dislike - 1) deductive reasoning; 2) any suggestion that they might be adopting the same presumptive approach as those they claim are merchants of woo.

What is really being said is that we shouldn't care whether or not "science" is a belief as the answers we get from what folk here like to call "critical thinking" are superior to those you or I might get from the deductive approach philosophers might employ.

And on logic - too few here fail to realise that if the premise is wrong all the logic in the world won't make the answer right (I have tried to introduce this through referring to Humpty Dumpty but I think that wasn't serious or scientific enough!)

Me, I'm just here for the joy of debate and the chance to challenge ignorant observations about economics and sociology. And to poke a little fun now and then

[tolman]

I get the impression from reading this site that the reason so many of you "logicians" seem to hate philosophy so much is that it's a little too threatening to your own belief systems.

People here don't hate philosophy.

However, I'd guess that quite a few dislike people who think that because they've read a book or two on the subject, they somehow know more about all forms of thinking than anyone else, including people who have probably read quite enough philosophy to realise its limitations.

Basically, the only people who respect philosophical poseurs are others of their kind and the very easily impressed, and I'm not sure how many people in either category anyone should expect to find on a skeptic's site.

Philosophy doesn't threaten science any more than it threatens gardening.
Far brighter people than you have pondered long and hard on science, but exactly how have any of them threatened it, or even much influenced it?

If it's not black and white you hate it don't you. If it questions the underlying assumptions of science it's heresy isn't it?

On the contrary, I think many people here thrive on thinking about grey areas.
Which underlying assumption of science do you have any evidence for being ill-founded.

You seem to have firmly made up your mind in what I must say appears to be a fairly black-and-white fashion, and have failed to make any attempt to address a single point that anyone has raised so far.

I assume you will soon leave with your prejudices about people unsullied by thought or experience, just as your opinion of science seems also likely to remain unchanged for precisely the same reasons.

[SimonC]

However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense". A particle can be in more than one place simultaneously for instance which does not conform to human ideas of logic.

I'd ask how we know these amazing things about the 'quantum universe'. What process of enquiry led to these fascinating conclusions? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was mostly logical deduction and empirical testing, wasn't it? Like the testing going on at CERN.

I certainly don't 'hate philosophy' - all discussions of morals, ethics, aesthetics etc are philosophical in nature. Science is pretty much useless in that regard. It's just that philosophy isn't generally the best tool for investigating the material universe ( to the limits of our perceptions, if you choose to add that caveat ).

[tolman]

Seems the regulars did their 'ganging up on you' act - your point was a good one (although Hobbes did it rather better around 300 years earlier) about our perception.

Maybe if the newbie had actually bothered to try and debate anything, rather than just saying "This is what I think" followed by various versions of "You're all wrong", they'd have got a better reception.

What is really being said is that we shouldn't care whether or not "science" is a belief as the answers we get from what folk here like to call "critical thinking" are superior to those you or I might get from the deductive approach philosophers might employ.

I think what's really being said is that a good fraction of the people who desire to categorise science as a belief are doing so from a position of disliking science for some personal reason or another. The reason they wish to categorise it is to be able to make the leap to saying "Because I've put science in the ill-defined 'belief' category, I can now consider it identical to other things in that category whenever it suits me to do so".
They're not trying to further their understanding of science by categorising it, they're trying to compensate for their lack of understanding of it.

And on logic - too few here fail to realise that if the premise is wrong all the logic in the world won't make the answer right.

But if what you're fundamentally bothered about is explanatory and predictive ability, right up to the point that you fail to be able to predict things, all the philosophers in the world wailing and gnashing their teeth won't make your predictions any less useful.
If you ever do reach that point, it'll still be a damn good bet that it's a scientist that you look to for a better world-model, not a philosopher.

[Croydon Bob]

Logic only operates within a very narrow framework, one that I call the Newtonian framework because Newtons laws of motion are intuitively understandable by human beings ie. they seem to "make sense". However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense". A particle can be in more than one place simultaneously for instance which does not conform to human ideas of logic. Therefore the underlying universe is not logical in it's operation and therefore logic cannot be imposed upon it. If logic cannot be imposed upon it then ultimately the human mind cannot understand it because the human mind can only understand that which it perceives as logical.

I've just caught up on the last few pages of this thread. I'm not a scientist, I don't have science qualifications and I write for a living. But I can smell bull when I'm exposed to it and the above is bull. Typical woo mumbo jumbo that could have been taken from a website selling healing crystals or somesuch rubbish.

[Allo Allo]

I've just caught up on the last few pages of this thread. I'm not a scientist, I don't have science qualifications and I write for a living. But I can smell bull when I'm exposed to it and the above is bull. Typical woo mumbo jumbo that could have been taken from a website selling healing crystals or somesuch rubbish.

Oooo - I squirmed with shame to read this post! It's plain rude. I think you must be having a bad day! You have made allegations with no backup source - how do you KNOW this is woo mumbo jumbo taken from a website selling healing crystals - and 'bull'? That is only your opinion after all. Everyone posting here has an opinion....it is really helpful to have others respect someone elses opinion rather than behave like some uncouth cretin and cut the thread dead! Do us a favour - mind our reputation!

[Matt]

Oooo - I squirmed with shame to read this post! It's plain rude. I think you must be having a bad day! You have made allegations with no backup source - how do you KNOW this is woo mumbo jumbo taken from a website selling healing crystals - and 'bull'? That is only your opinion after all. Everyone posting here has an opinion....it is really helpful to have others respect someone elses opinion rather than behave like some uncouth cretin and cut the thread dead! Do us a favour - mind our reputation!

Why aren't you respecting Croydon Bob's opinion?

[Allo Allo]

Why aren't you respecting Croydon Bob's opinion?

Good point!

Probably because he stated it in an offensive way?

Probably because he was uttering his hostility?

Probably because I am enjoying this thread (though not posting on it) and don't want it to stop dead?

Probably because in my years of watching people come and go here, it makes me sad that everyone is so TIRED of protecting their 'skepticism' against woo intruders, they just chase them away from sheer exhaustion?

Probably because I'm tired of the 'attitude'?

Probably because I've heard it all before?

Probably because I've been on the receiving end of such rudeness myself because of my woo ideas from Cuddles - who never knew or was ever aware of how ill it made me?

Probably because I believe that skeptics have such a bad reputation already it shouldn't be confirmed?

Probably because the only reason I am posting anything at all is that I am off sick myself and have the time to care?

Probably because I'm just old and bossy?

Who knows?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, if it is stated politely - and agrees with my own!

[tolman]

Probably because in my years of watching people come and go here, it makes me sad that everyone is so TIRED of protecting their 'skepticism' against woo intruders, they just chase them away from sheer exhaustion?

Probably because I'm tired of the 'attitude'?

Probably because I've heard it all before?

I don't think it's tiredness so much as boredom.
The typical 'science doesn't know everything' poster seems so predictable, practically at the level of the average creationist troll (assuming it's not a creationist troll having a go at science).

The *impression* they give is of someone who deep down has a personal problem with either science as a whole (like never being much good at it at school), or some particular finding of science (maybe contradicting something they'd like to believe, yet they can't actually show any credible evidence that that specific bit of science is wrong, so they try and have a go at science in general).

Unfortunately, just as with a pimply-faced creationist, if they're just ignored, they'll tend to just think that it's because no-one had any reply to their stunning argument.

As it is, it would seem that in this case, any number of replies might not have made any impact, since the person in question isn't actually listening, and seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that they're too profound for anyone else to understand, when instead, they're really saying nothing that hasn't been said more eloquently and less arrogantly many times before, and which even when said well, never seemed to influence science to any great extent, because it's largely irrelevant to the practical pursuit of scientific knowledge.

[Allo Allo]

I don't think it's tiredness so much as boredom.
The typical 'science doesn't know everything' poster seems so predictable, practically at the level of the average creationist troll (assuming it's not a creationist troll having a go at science).

The *impression* they give is of someone who deep down has a personal problem with either science as a whole (like never being much good at it at school), or some particular finding of science (maybe contradicting something they'd like to believe, yet they can't actually show any credible evidence that that specific bit of science is wrong, so they try and have a go at science in general).

Unfortunately, just as with a pimply-faced creationist, if they're just ignored, they'll tend to just think that it's because no-one had any reply to their stunning argument.

As it is, it would seem that in this case, any number of replies might not have made any impact, since the person in question isn't actually listening, and seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that they're too profound for anyone else to understand, when instead, they're really saying nothing that hasn't been said more eloquently and less arrogantly many times before, and which even when said well, never seemed to influence science to any great extent, because it's largely irrelevant to the practical pursuit of scientific knowledge.

Nice defence! Eloquently rude and well crafted! And it's true that I have read philosophical discussions on this board by thinking people that have been amicable and mentally stimulating.

UK Skeptics is surely not dedicated solely to the promotion of a single kind of skepticism - some knowledge, like our personal inner landscapes cannot be scientifically quantified. It's that that we display here everytime we 'talk' to each other. The connection should be that some aspect of our inner landscape is 'skeptical'. I refuse to have my skeptical aspect squeezed into a brick of prescribed dogmatic skepticism that I hurl at other people.

Bricks of prescribed dogmatic skepticism - the kind of bricks thrown around here are also irrelevant to the practical pursuit of scientific knowledge for they are most often not the kind of bricks used in the construction of it. Scientific skepticism has different shaped bricks to the UK Skeptics/James Randi kind....

In defence of our buddhist zenthinker poster - he might not be a creationist at all - but some kind of naturalist - or even a scientist!

[Admin]

dogmatic skepticism

That's an oxymoron and using it shows a total lack of understanding of what skepticism is.

Scientific skepticism has different shaped bricks to the UK Skeptics/James Randi kind....

See above.

[Admin]

Science is belief because it assumes that the universe is logical in nature and that therefore it can be explained by logic.

Science doesn't assume that at all.

Logic only operates within a very narrow framework, one that I call the Newtonian framework because Newtons laws of motion are intuitively understandable by human beings ie. they seem to "make sense". However once we step outside of this framework into say the relativistic framework or the quantum mechanical framework then things begin to "not make sense".

Are you confusing logic with determinism? It looks that way to me.

Scientists did indeed once think that the universe is deterministic, but that notion was abandoned a long time ago. It is through science that quantum mechanics was developed by the way, not some mystical insight.

This is the great error that logicians and scientists make. They assume that the universe is logical in nature and that their senses can ultimately comprehend it's workings.

No, that's completely wrong.

You're displaying the sort of thinking much beloved of those into mystical/paranormal/supernatural/faith-based ideas. It's a waste of time and effort however. Even if you do show that science is flawed or wrong or unable to explain certain phenomena, it still adds no weight to any any counter-arguments or counter-philosophy.

"Science can't be used to explain qualia; therefore my spiritual 'knowledge' is correct" is not a valid argument.

[tolman]

In defence of our buddhist zenthinker poster - he might not be a creationist at all - but some kind of naturalist - or even a scientist!

I don't believe I said they were a creationist, just that the style of arrival and delivery was in some ways similar.

On the style issue, I'm not sure if it was here or elsewhere, but I kind-of-remember at least one person turning up somewhere like this with a username that seemed to proclaim a similar kind of self-image, and start saying rather similar things. Still, that was probably just someone cast from the same type.